To Rise Up...
by Dairine
Summary: Some things just can't be controlled...


A/N: Just a quick fic I wrote for extra credit once…and got in my school literary magazine…minus identifying names of course…check out "The Only Point" if you want more of my writing…hehe…right…

Timeline: some point in the middle of the series wherever it makes the most sense…

To Rise Up From the Ashes

By Dairine

            The pale grey dust sifts gently over the seemingly barren planet.  A soft illumination comes from the nearest stars, two blue-white points of light, allowing the surface to glow a pure milky white.

            Then all at once they emerge from the dust.  They come slowly at first, tiny gleaming traces of brilliant ruby red pushing up from within, resembling nothing so much as a hatching.

            Faster now, they rise up, eight feet high with a glorious twenty-foot wingspan.  They give a single shudder, and the dust falls away, revealing feathers that glow as red as tiny garnets, and glittering golden talons and beaks.  Their eyes are a ring of ashes around huge dark pupils.  

            The phoenix have risen.

            A sound, pure and musical, breaks the long silence.  Listening, one might be swept away by the sounds and feelings evoked by the song of the phoenix.  There are no complicated rhythms or systems of rhyme and meter.  It is simpler than that, more idealistic, and naïve.  It is a joy expressed more clearly in their song than could be expressed in words.  Soon the song begins to trail off in an even simpler expression of joy…laughter.  Then it is over.  

            The formation is broken and the phoenix goes out to play.

            It is approximately a thousand years later.  That is, it had been a thousand cycles of their planet around the closest stars.  Fafnir looked to the sky, stared at the twin blue-white suns, barely glancing at the black and nearly invisible Blade ship now orbiting their planet.  He heard his friend, Nementh's call and flew off to join in the games.

            In orbit, inside the ship, the cold voice spoke in a velvety, calculating whisper.

            "Report?" she questioned.

            "The planet appears to be inhabited by a mostly non-sentient avarian species." Fesess 2345's voice was soft, respectful.

            "Any biological resistance?" she inquired.

            "A team has just been sent to the surface to find out."

            She smiled, "Good.  Report immediately upon their return."

            Meanwhile, back on the planet, Tiamat approached the visitors.  _They were such odd creatures, she thought.  __Would they want to play?  She took to the air briefly, showing them. __What great games to silly bladed creatures could play!  Would they fly as well?  And what were those huge strange things they'd come in?  She saw Fafnir and Nmenth and called to them in a laughing melody of voice._

            "Come!" she cried out happily.  "There are great games to be played!"

            "Such serious visitors," Fafnir called back.  "Why don't they sing?"

            Nmenth countered, amused, "They have come to learn to play.  Why else should they come?"

            One of the visitors took out a small grey thing and came forward.

            "See?"  Tiamat laughed, "a game!  They have brought a new game!"  She landed in front of the creatures and eyed the grey thing curiously.  Was it some new creature?  What would happen next?

            The creature held it out toward her head.  It pressed the grey thing to her ear. Tiamat smiled, even as the strange grey creature began to enter her ear.  _How silly these things were!  Suddenly, as if poisoned, the grey creature drew back frantically, then crumpled into dust.  Tiamat laughed again and waited expectantly. She did not expect the strange new creatures to leave so quickly in the great strange things they had come in.  Nor did she expect them to leave without the strange grey creature coming back.  So Tiamat stayed, impatiently waiting for the small grey creature to return, but it remained dust.  _

            "Come, Tiamat!" Fafnir said eventually, as he lifted into the air and circled her once.  "There are more games to be played!"

            Tiamat laughed again and flew after him, forgetting the strange creature that had turned to dust and had not come back.  It was time to play.  

            Back in orbit, Visser One listened to their report and sighed.  "If they are unable to be used as hosts then we have no use for them." She turned to the weapons commander, Inghiss 4568,  "I believe now would be an excellent time to test our new Dracon weapon."

            "But…"

            "Kill them all."

            Inghiss 4568 hesitated for an instant, then began to process the command.  He was no fool, one obeyed her or one paid the price.

            The crew watched as the lasers found their mark and fired.  An instant later, the planet was obliterated into mere ashes.

            "Now, moving on…"

            In the midst of the ashes, once the ship had disappeared, the planet had already begun to reform.  Once more a milky white, dusty sphere seemed to float amongst the stars.  Down on the surface, ruby red clusters began once more to emerge and become the beautifully jeweled phoenix.  Their singing began, rose up in a glorious sound of pure joy, before the formation broke once more.

            And then the phoenix went out to play…

THE END

"To conquer death you only have to die…you only have to die…" –Poor Jerusalem, JCS


End file.
